British Police have now published a fragment of bodycam footage showing the final moments of Henry Nowak’s life as he was handcuffed by an officer after being stabbed, with critics, including Reform UK figures, stating that it is “hard to escape” the conclusion that the video is evidence of racist policing against whites.
Hours after murderer Vickrum Digwa was handed a British-style life sentence with a minimum imprisonment of 21 years, and as demands for the release of police body camera footage from the critical final moments grew, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary chose late Monday night to publish a fragment of footage.
Showing just three minutes between officers arriving at the scene and the moment one officer realises stabbing victim Henry Nowak’s eyes have stopped moving before abruptly cutting off, the video had previously been shown to the jury during the murder trial but had not been seen publicly until now.
In the footage, a group of police officers arrive at a suburban house to find Nowak being held up against a wall. In interactions with killer Vickrum Digwa and members of Digwa’s family — who beat officers to the scene to support him, including by hiding the murder weapon, the court found — the attitude and tone of voice of officers appeared laconic, if not jaded. One officer was seen approaching Nowak and asking what his name was, before bodily dragging him across the gravel.
Nowak repeatedly told officers in an apparently strangled voice, “I’ve been stabbed”. While these protestations were generally ignored, the officer finally responded: “You’ve been stabbed? Whereabouts? I don’t think you have mate” before rolling Novak over and ordering him to offer his hands up to be cuffed.
In a scene that had not previously been made public, a female officer appears and asks Henry Nowak, “Where do you think you’ve been stabbed? In the face?” An unseen male interjects at this point, interrupting the conversation to assert “he hasn’t been stabbed”, to which the female police officer appeared to respond with sympathy to the man, replying: “I know, but we have to check, don’t we?”
It was previously reported that killer Digwa’s father had made such remarks, including telling officers and Nowak at the scene that he was “pretending” to have been stabbed, although it isn’t perfectly clear who is speaking at the time of this reporting.
The male police officer rolls Nowak onto his side, who had fallen silent. The officer said, “What’s your name, mate? At the moment, you are under arrest, that’s for assault. You do not have to say anything that may harm your defence if you do… should you later rely upon in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Alright?”
The question was met with further silence, prompting the officer to say he thought his prisoner, the dying or dead Nowak, was going to be sick. A further female police officer flashes a torch in Nowak’s face and observes “his pupils aren’t even reacting”, at which point the released video ends.
Henry Nowak’s father, Mark Nowak, stood outside Southampton Crown Court today and decried the undignified death his son suffered after police officers arriving at the scene appeared to accept uncritically murderer Digwa’s claim to have been the victim of racist abuse while telling the stabbing victim that he was mistaken about having been stabbed. As reported:
Mark Nowak, said that while the family “hold Vickrum Digwa solely and 100 per cent responsible for the brutal murder of our son”, he should “not have died on the streets of Southampton in police custody. The way he was treated was inhumane and degrading”. The father said the last thing Nowak knew as he went unconscious was that he was being read his rights by the arresting officer.
On that undignified death while in handcuffs, Mr Nowak reflected: “He told [police] he had been stabbed four times. The response from one officer was ‘I don’t think you have mate’. The police say they had been misled. Instead of being treated like a dying victim, police arrested him for assault… Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him.”
On the other hand, Nowak said, murderer Digwa “was afforded decency” by police. He reflected: “He was believed. He was not handcuffed when arrested. He was not handcuffed when transported to the police station. As far as we understand, he was never handcuffed at all. And, as Vickrum Digwa himself told the court, while under arrest for Henry’s murder, police even took him to the kitchen so he could choose his food. The contrast is unbearable.”
The extraordinary police arrest footage of murder victim Henry Nowak prompted an outpouring of concern about the quality and content of police officer training, a building outrage about the case, and the prevalence of so-called two-tier policing. Brexit pioneer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called it “the most shocking footage of discrimination that you will ever see” and stated plainly: “This must be a turning point. White lives matter too.”
Reform UK justice spokesman Robert Jenrick and home affairs spokesman Suella Braverman also identified a racial element to the police’s response. Jenrick wrote: “He was the victim, but treated like a criminal. ‘I can’t breathe’ he says, over and over again. Instead of helping him the police arrest him on false charges of racism. Harrowing. It’s hard to escape the conclusion he was treated differently because he was white.”
Braverman called the footage “extremely shocking” and said, “This is not just about knife crime. This is about police failure, poor police training and anti- white racism. Who is going to be held accountable for this scandal?”
Former police murder detective Colin Sutton, who became Reform’s police and crime advisor last year, added: “The greatest single change policing needs is to the culture of [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, DEI] which is imposed from the very top down. Two-tier enforcement, focus on social media, NCHIs – all the things that anger neighbourhoods where shoplifting, burglary, anti-social behaviour and phone thefts go unpunished stem from this pseudo-intellectual brainwashing. We must stop it.”
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